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My mom baked the most fantastic cake for my grandfather's 73rd birthday party. The cake was slathered in impossibly thick frosting and topped with an assortment of delightful creatures which my mom crafted out of mini-marshmallows and toothpicks. To a four-year-old child, it was a thing of wonder - half toy, half cake and all glorious possibility.

But my mom knew that it was extremely important to keep the cake away from me because she knew that if I was allowed even a tiny amount of sugar, not only would I become intensely hyperactive, but the entire scope of my existence would funnel down to the singular goal of obtaining and ingesting more sugar. My need for sugar would become so massive, that it would collapse in upon itself and create a vacuum into which even more sugar would be drawn until all the world had been stripped of sweetness.

So when I managed to climb onto the counter and grab a handful of cake while my mom's back was turned, an irreversible chain reaction was set into motion.

I had tasted cake and there was no going back. My tiny body had morphed into a writhing mass of pure tenacity encased in a layer of desperation. I would eat all of the cake or I would evaporate from the sheer power of my desire to eat it.

My mom had prepared the cake early in the day to get the task out of the way. She thought she was being efficient, but really she had only ensured that she would be forced to spend the whole day protecting the cake from my all-encompassing need to eat it. I followed her around doggedly, hoping that she would set the cake down - just for a moment.

My mom quickly tired of having to hold the cake out of my reach. She tried to hide the cake, but I found it almost immediately. She tried putting the cake on top of the refrigerator, but my freakish climbing abilities soon proved it to be an unsatisfactory solution.

Her next attempt at cake security involved putting the cake in the refrigerator and then placing a very heavy box in front of the refrigerator's door.

The box was far too heavy for me to move. When I discovered that I couldn't move the box, I decided that the next best strategy would be to dramatically throw my body against it until my mom was forced to move it or allow me to destroy myself.

Surprisingly, this tactic did not garner much sympathy.

I went and played with my toys, but I did not enjoy it.

I had to stay focused.

I played vengefully for the rest of the afternoon. All of my toys died horrible deaths at least once. But I never lost sight of my goal.

My mom finally came to get me. She handed me a dress and told me to put it on because we were leaving for the party soon. I put the dress on backwards just to make her life slightly more difficult.

I was herded into the car and strapped securely into my car seat. As if to taunt me, my mom placed the cake in the passenger seat, just out of my reach.

We arrived at my grandparents' house and I was immediately accosted by my doting grandmother while my mom walked away holding the cake.

I could see my mom and the cake disappearing into the hallway as I watched helplessly. I struggled against my grandmother's loving embrace, but my efforts were futile. I heard the sound of a door shutting and then a lock sliding into place. My mom had locked the cake in the back bedroom. How was I going to get to it now? I hadn't yet learned the art of lock-picking and I wasn't nearly strong enough to kick the door in. It felt as though all my life's aspirations were slipping away from me in a landslide of tragedy. How could they do this to me? How could they just sit there placidly as my reason for living slowly faded from my grasp? I couldn't take it. My little mind began to crumble.

And then, right there in my grandmother's arms, I lapsed into a full-scale psychological meltdown. My collective frustrations burst forth from my tiny body like bees from a nest that had just been pelted with a rock.

It was unanimously decided that I would need to go play outside until I was able to regain my composure and stop yelling and punching. I was banished to the patio where I stood peering dolefully through the sliding glass door, trying to look as pitiful as possible.

I knew the cake was locked securely in the bedroom, but if I could just get them to let me inside... maybe. Maybe I could find a way to get to it. After all, desperation breeds ingenuity. I could possibly build an explosive device or some sort of pulley system. I had to try. But at that point, my only real option was to manipulate their emotions so they'd pity me and willfully allow me to get closer to the cake.

When my theatrics failed to produce the desired results, I resorted to crying very loudly, right up against the glass.

I carried on in that fashion until my mom poked her head outside and, instead of taking pity on me and warmly inviting me back inside as I had hoped, told me to go play in the side yard because I was fogging up the glass and my inconsolable sobbing was upsetting my grandmother.

I trudged around to the side of the house, glaring reproachfully over my shoulder and thinking about how sorry my mom would be if I were to die out there. She'd wish she would have listened. She'd wish she had given me a piece of cake. But it would be too late.

But as I rounded the corner, the personal tragedy I was constructing in my imagination was interrupted by a sliver of hope.

Just above my head, there was a window. On the other side of that particular window was the room in which my mom had locked the cake. The window was open.

The window was covered by a screen, but my dad had shown me how to remove a screen as a preemptive safety measure in case I was trapped in a fire and he couldn't get to me and I turned out to be too stupid to figure out how to kick in a screen to escape death by burning.

I clambered up the side of the house and pushed the screen with all my strength.

It gave way, and suddenly there I was - mere feet from the cake, unimpeded by even a single obstacle.

I couldn't fully believe what had just occurred. I crept slowly - reverently - toward the cake, my body quivering with anticipation. It was mine. All mine.

I ate the entire cake. At one point, I remember becoming aware of the oppressive fullness building inside of me, but I kept eating out of a combination of spite and stubbornness. No one could tell me not to eat an entire cake - not my mom, not Santa, not God - no one. I would eat cake whenever I damn well pleased. It was my cake and everyone else could go fuck themselves.

..

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, my mother suddenly noticed that she hadn't heard my tortured sobbing in a while.

She became concerned because it was unusual for my tantrums to stop on their own like that, so she went looking for me.

When she couldn't find me anywhere, she finally thought to unlock the bedroom door and peek inside.

And there I was.

I spent the rest of the evening in a hyperglycemic fit, alternately running around like a maniac and regurgitating the multi-colored remains of my conquest all over my grandparents' carpet. I was so miserable, but my suffering was small compared to the satisfaction I felt every time my horrible, conniving mother had to watch me retch up another rainbow of sweet, semi-digested success: this is for you, mom. This is what happens when you try to get between me and cake - I silently challenged her to try again to prevent me from obtaining something I wanted. Just once. Just to see what would happen. It didn't matter how violently ill I felt, in that moment, I was a god - the god of cake - and I was unstoppable.

Those last pictures...heehee...that's how I look after going out to eat at Chili's. I always try not to, but I just can't resist that Molten Chocolate cake! And there's NO WAY I'm leaving ANY of that on the plate!

Once, when he was young, my dad ate a whole bowl of cashews. My grandma told him not do to it & tried to put them where he couldn't get them. But dad kept at it til he got them and consumed the whole bowl.

By all reports, the barfing that followed was pretty amazing.

I think the lesson here is to never underestimate the ability of a determined child to vomit on everything in sight.

You've pretty much captured my entire childhood in a single essay. I spent large portions of it in an endless quest for anything sweet. Things have not improved now that I have the ability to actually go out and get sweet things for myself. This is why gallons of ice cream never last more than two days in my house.

um...are you channeling my childhood? that would so be something i would do...especially my mom throwing me outside while I cried at the door pathetically and my mom coming back with no sympathy and telling me to move away from the door...and the killing of my toys.

and of course, me gluttonously gouging on that cake...full handfuls! take that mom!

This reminds me of my third month of pregnancy with my first child. I ate a whole cake. No one could stop me. My husband came home after work and asked where the cake was. I proudly told him I ate it..and guess what if you make fun of me or scold me...I will do it again!

Loved this one! The cake illustrations are really great, and now I want some cake. If I was your mother (and this is why I should be sedated and given an abortion should I ever become pregnant) I would have shoved some candles in your ass and made everyone sing happy birthday as hot wax dripped onto your tender little cheeks. You wanna eat the whole cake, you little shit, you BECOME the cake.

But I'm sure you had a much more loving and patient mother, and you appear to have turned into a relatively normal adult, so perhaps the candles in the ass would have been the wrong approach.

You mean this isn't normal behavior when cake is involved? I'm having these same feelings of "must.consume.all.now." for the candy my mom brought back from Germany that's in my freezer...at least, what I didn't eat in a sugar-induced frenzy this weekend.

OH MY GOD I KNEW IT! I knew that my four year old did things like put on her clothes backwards JUST TO ANNOY ME. People told me, "oh please, she's only four, it's not like she's a diabolical genius, quite the contrary judging by the fact that her dress is on backward." But I knew it. And now I have proof.

It's a little scary that I identify so much with your mother right now. But in a good way. Because you're awesome and if she grows up to be as awesome as you I will be a very happy old lady.

Cake? Pfft...when I was little, I wasn't all about getting cake. I was all about CAKE BATTER!!!!! No matter how hard you try, it's not easy to stop someone from stealing fingersfull of batter when you are getting ingredients and stirring. Muhahahaa!

To this day I still eat the batter of everything. Cookie dough, cake batter, tortilla dough, buiscuit dough, cornbread batter, pancake batter....but now I do all the baking in my own house and my kids shun batter. I'm not sure they are my kids thinking about it that way...I'm the only one who eats it. But I'll tell you one thing...if the batter tastes good, then the final product will too!

Oh, so so so funny. Reminds me of my daughter at a wedding we went to when she was 3. She ran laps around the reception hall and every time she passed the wedding cake she would swipe a handful of it and eat it. We tried to stop her, but she was too fast. :)

In science someone thought it was a good idea to give me a sharpie, the table is now nearly full of quotes from you. The remainder of space is going to this post. You really do make me a happy Viking :D

This is fantastic! And oddly familiar, I have been one to finish an ENTIRE cake out of spite! Power to sugar highs and no being able to tell you cant eat an entire cake! FYI. I have never loved anything as much as I love your blog!

I just made a cake today for my fella's birthday! It is sitting all coy and seductive in my fridge at this VERY MOMENT and it is all I can do not to eat the entire thing before he gets home. This post made it infinitely more challenging.

Ok, now that that's out of my system: this totally happened to me on a yearly basis growing up. Every year at Christmas my aunts would have to lock all the desserts into the screened in porch to thwart my cousin's and my efforts to liberate them. We never fully succeeded, partially I think because my one aunt always threatened us with a cheese slicer. There was one valient effort tho involving a catapult made from a snowbank and a shovel- I think our goal was to go in from the roof? I was 9. There's still a dent in the door post.

Oh, and I used to work (till last week) at a magazine in Doha, Qatar, and I plugged your blog in my last issue! When it goes online at the end of the month I can send you the link if you like :)

I'm rather new to your site and have been going through a dull/depressing patch lately. Luckily, I have all your old posts to catch up on and to keep me entertained when my minds on the mend! I was overjoyed to read your new post today! Thanks for coming into my life right when I needed a pick me up :)

Yep. Miscalculated and my mom figured out that I was eating a good portion of the writing frosting tube every time there was a birthday. She was horrified. I had a multicolored tongue and a gloriously nauseous stomach....

Hilarious! Long time reader but first time commenter because I just wanted to ask : if faced with a similar taunting-cake situation today, would you react exactly the same? Because all I can say is that for the right cake, I too would run headlong into a heavy box...repeatedly.

This describes every single time my mother would make some dessert. I wouldn't go to your extreme, but I would manage a way to sneak some batter or dough or frosting. If it was cookies, I think I managed to sneak eating about half the dough. It was horrible...since it meant only half as many cookies got baked.

Yay, you're back! I missed your posts! I used to be this way as a kid, but with ice cream. I would hide the bowls under my bed so no one would would know how much I'd eaten. Too funny. Thanks for the laughs!

bahaha love this, and love you. i love how this story is so funny in your words and your drawings, even though i'm pretty sure i would have have been praying you went into a sugar induced coma if i was one of the adults present that day.

honestly, if i could ever hope to be an inanimate object, it would be hyperbole and a half.

I always thought I was the only one that was selfish (dense?) enough to expect everyone else would be worse off than me if something terrible happened because I didn't get my own way, eg., a lonely, side yard, death. But thanks to you, I know I'm not completely alone in my, erm, uniqueness

yay, new post!!!!!!!!!THE POSTS ARE THE ONLY THING THAT MATTER O___O...just kidding.

for some reason the first time i read this through, i imagined you scaling an entire wall to get to the cake in a 2nd-floor bedroom. i suppose you certainly had enough energy and willpower for it! but then i started questioning the means... i went back and reread it, and i noticed the phrasing of the cake entering the bedroom lacked any mention of stairs, and then i realized i was being kinda silly....although it would have been amazing if you'd climbed up to the 2nd floor just to get at the cake.

Getting to cake through window became a foregone conclusion in my head as soon as the story placed you outside. It's tragic the way parents' minds cease to function logically once children clog them with worry and frustration.

I guess karma will get most of us eventually, and our parents will sit back and enjoy the restoration of their thought processes as they watch us chase our own maniacal children marauding like wee Huns all hopped up on sugar-highs from Grandma's loving handouts.

You are awesome. The combination of your words and your illustrations are priceless. Each is wonderful but they really are inseparable. So much more than the sum of their parts. I'm so glad I found you!

You are awesome. The combination of your words and your illustrations are priceless. Each is wonderful but they really are inseparable. So much more than the sum of their parts. I'm so glad I found you!

I have never laughed so hard in my entire life, I know 'love' is battered around nowadays, But I think I love you. Allie, you have made my year. I am crying from laughing and dribbled a tad. You are perfect.

Allie, I'd have you know that you're about to get me fired. My coworkers now think I have some sort of warthog cold because of my attempts to cover my snorts of laughter in a fit of coughing.

Yes, I know that I should be ... I don't know, WORKING at work instead of reading your blog and desperately (and unsuccessfully) trying not to giggle, but I would argue that it is your fault I'd rather read your blog post than work. You should make your posts less funny.

I immediately thought of my happy little stuffed "cake" bunny I bought on Etsy. (I also have a "poop" bunny and a "crap" bunny.) His dazed, delirious expression reminds me of your drawings. But I especially love the drawing of your "evil plotting" face.jooliep

I love you in all your glorious hilariousness, but the adult in me wants to know how you were punished and assure that it was adequate. I guess that says a lot about your skills as a writer - way to make me still love you but feel so strongly what adults must have felt about this!

Allie, I need to stop reading your articles (and therefore you really need to stop posting them) when I'm in the middle of a boring Contracts class. It is entirely inappropriate to start laughing uncontrollably when discussing the tedious details of the Uniform Commercial Code.

I was doing pretty well until the look on your face when you got caught.

YEA!!!!! I only just discovered your blog a few weeks ago and then spent the better part of a work week trying not to let my boss hear me snorting with laughter as a read through ALL your archives! And then I was out of posts to read and it made me feel sad. But I checked every single day for a new post, and here it is! But now I've read it and I'm out of posts to read and I feel sad again. Another post, please!?!?!

Yay! Glad to see you're back. I just discovered this blog awhile ago when Woot! suggested you. That was about a month ago for your last post. For awhile there, I thought your absence was my fault. It wouldn't be the first a blogger decided to stop posting as soon as I find out about them, I've been burned before. But now, my conscience is clear.

Dear Allie,I love all of your posts. I laugh at all of your posts. I created a dreamcatcher out of all of your posts to ensure I only have awesome dreams. Your writing and illustrating skills so compliment one another that the resulting hilarity is just ferocious. I don't remember the last time something I read on a computer screen made every muscle in my body convulse with laughter.You have a gift.I hope your life is fantastic.Much love, chica.Stormy

I love that you manage to make me laugh every single time. I mean, I actually started this one a little worried, thinking that maybe the Party post had been so good that it would outshine every following post. But no.